Starstruck at New Zealand's Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve

At this time of day here a particular type of creature emerges: the stargazer, or astro-tourist. They are wearing so many clothes they look twice their normal size and are carrying all manner of cameras, tripods, smartphones and battery packs. They gather in windswept car parks and wait for strangers to take them into the wilds and show them extraordinary celestial wonders; things that can stir the soul.

On this midwinter evening, I am one of these creatures - a mix of trepidation, coiled excitement and thermal undergarments. My trepidation is caused by a band of cloud that has drifted in during the late afternoon and is threatening to spoil the whole show.

My guide, however, is optimistic. "We'll see stars, don't you worry," says Joseph Pooley as we drive to one of his "spots". Unlike stargazing operators that rely on fixed observatories, Joseph's Alpha CruX enterprise is 100 per cent mobile so if it's cloudy in one spot (which is very rare here), he can get his guests and his telescope to a clearer one. He also uses his skills as an astrophotographer to help guests take their own spectacular star snaps.

The predominance of clear skies in this central part of the South Island is one reason it was officially accredited as the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve in 2012 by the International Dark-Sky Association. The reserve comprises Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park and the Mackenzie Basin, 4367 square kilometres all up. It's the largest such reserve in the southern hemisphere and was accredited after years of hard work by local Maori and non-Maori communities working together.

More and more sites worldwide are being accredited as Dark Sky Places, which encourages, and in some cases requires, local communities to minimise light pollution. This conserves energy and protects wildlife whose life cycles, breeding patterns and migrations can be seriously threatened by artificial light.

Dark sky places are also proving very good for business. Bespoke, luxury tour operator Southern Crossings estimates it has seen a roughly 20-25 per cent jump in the number of clients wanting an astro-tourism experience in New Zealand since the country reopened its borders a year ago.

Joseph is explaining the criteria for becoming a Dark Sky Reserve when he suddenly pulls off the dirt road. The cloud has cleared and above us is a memorable sight. Rising vertically from the eastern horizon and across a crystal-clear, pin-sharp sky is the bright central band of the Milky Way, more vivid than I have ever seen it. A broad paintbrush stroke of billions of blue, white and orange stars, and voluminous dust and gas clouds. It arcs up over our heads and down the western sky to the snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps.

Joseph leads my eyes to the curled tail and sting of the constellation of Scorpius.

"Just below that you can just see a faint smudge," he says. "That's M7, an open star cluster about 980 light years away. Below that is Sagittarius; for generations it has been represented as a centaur but if you take the eight brightest stars in that constellation you see a celestial teapot instead, which is way easier to spot."

Joseph's mix of humour, knowledge and enthusiasm is infectious. His aim, he tells me, is to "blow people's minds" and encourage them to be inspired by the wonder of it all.

"People seem to feel really separated from the magnitude of the night sky and what's going on up there but in fact we are a major part of it here on Earth," he said as the telescope's hydraulics whirred into life. "The elements that make up our bodies were forged in the core of a dying star so we're technically made of stardust."

That's a pretty staggering thing to consider as you look up at your twinkling stellar relatives.

Joseph begins "blowing my mind" by translating the sky for me. With the naked eye we see Venus blazing away as it sets in the west, the little orange dot of Mars by its side. We find the Southern Cross and its Pointers, which are two stars known as Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri.

"Now, look at them again through the telescope and tell me what you see," he says.

I look through the eyepiece and discover that Alpha Centauri is not one star but three, two of which are a binary pair orbiting each other in a romantic stellar waltz 4.3 light years out in space.

Near the dancing stars are two more smudges: the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud, a pair of dwarf galaxies near the outskirts of the Milky Way and 160,000 and 210,000 light years away respectively. That means if you were travelling at the speed of light, it would take you 160,000 years to reach the large one.

"I tend to use the word 'unfathomable' a lot on my tours," says Joseph, sensing I am struggling to find an adequate description for the magnitude of what I am witnessing.

The telescope turns the larger smudge into a breathtaking scene from a sci-fi film. Inside it crouches the Tarantula Nebula, a luminous star-forming region which Joseph describes as a "mass of ionised hydrogen, like a giant fluorescent lamp in space".

It is hard to believe I am seeing this for real rather than a photo he has slotted in front of the eyepiece. Come to think of it, it is hard to believe that any of the evening's incredible display is real, such is the beauty and wonder of it all.

Later that night, back at my villa at the Mount Cook Lakeside Retreat, I have a nip of whisky and light a log fire. While it roars to life I go back outside to check the sky again. The stars have shifted, just slightly, arcing towards the west, as part of their nightly journey across the heavens. The Milky Way is lying diagonally while to the east, Saturn is rising. I could get addicted to this, I think. I have only spent one night stargazing in the Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve but my soul is already thanking me.

The writer travelled courtesy of Southern Crossings

Getting there: You can fly direct to Christchurch from Sydney and Melbourne. Lake Tekapo is a three-hour drive from Christchurch.

Ways to stargaze: Dark Sky Project guests can take the Summit Experience looking through telescopes at Mt John Observatory above Lake Tekapo (one hour, 45 minutes), the Crater Experience using a telescope at a private observatory (one hour, 15 minutes) or the daytime Virtual Stargazing Experience, an immersive, virtual tour at the astronomy base in town (45 minutes). darkskyproject.co.nz

Contact Joseph Pooley via alphacrux.co.nz, and learn more about Southern Crossings - a bespoke luxury travel specialist which tailors personalised luxury travel in New Zealand, Australia and the South Pacific - at southern-crossings.com.

Explore more: mackenzienz.com

The incredibly clear sky over the Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve reveals scores of constellations and asterisms universally known by their Latin, Greek or scientific names.

The Maori also defined and named collections of stars in the sky centuries ago, before they knew about the more globally familiar ones. They used them to mark time and the seasons of the year, to connect them to their ancestors and to navigate, in some cases over thousands of kilometres of open ocean.

There is no better place to learn about Maori astronomy (or tatai arorangi) than the Dark Sky Project in Lake Tekapo... and no better guide than Tutepourangi Manihera-Thomson, or "Tu".

"Maori have read the sky for centuries to predict weather, to find out when fish would be present, when certain birds and animals were ready for hunting and when the soil should be planted," says Tu. "We don't have an official Maori sky map and not all Maori groups (or "iwi") see or name the same constellations or asterisms. There are many stories across the country but they all add to our understanding of stars from a Maori perspective and help us realise there is more than one way to view the night sky."

On stargazing tours, Tu and his colleagues reveal amazing star canoes (or "wakas"), one of them the chief's canoe (also the tail of Scorpius) riding the Milky Way. The larger of the wakas stretches from Orion to the Pleiades star cluster, which Maori know as Matariki. One story says that one of the stars of Matariki (Phutukawa) casts a net down to earth to gather the souls of the dead and scatter them across the sky as stars.

"You're here at a very auspicious time of year because Matariki is rising," says Tu. "It marks New Year in our lunar calendar."

Such has been the recent rise in interest in Maori astronomy that former prime minister Jacinda Ardern decreed Matariki a formal public holiday and it was celebrated for the first time in 2022.

In the heart of the Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve, with staggering views over glacial-blue Lake Pukaki, is the Mount Cook Lakeside Retreat, the perfect base for a stargazing holiday in the South Island.

Trek through restorative pine forests, luxuriate in palatial villas with roaring log fires and dine on delicious local food, with salmon from the lake and herbs and vegetables grown on the property. After dark, head for the retreat's Pukaki Wine Cellar and Observatory.

Sip a glass of wine or a wee dram from the impressive collection of Scottish single malts as the roof of the observatory room is opened. There, laid out above you is the brilliant night sky. Through the telescope, the stars feel close enough to touch. mtcookretreat.nz

Aoraki Mackenzie might be the largest dark sky reserve in the southern hemisphere but there are plenty of other dark sky places around. Here at home is the Warrumbungle Dark Sky Park in central NSW, home to the Siding Spring Observatory and the largest telescope in Australia. We also have the River Murray Dark Sky Reserve, 100 kilometres east of Adelaide in South Australia, which was accredited in 2019.

Wales has the Brecon Beacons Dark Sky Reserve in a part of the country where sheep outnumber people 30 to 1, while France has the Pic du Midi Dark Sky Reserve in the Pyrenees that includes a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a national park.

In the United States astro-tourists can visit Prineville Reservoir Dark Sky Park on the edge of the High Desert region of central Oregon, and in Japan the Iriomote-Ishigaki Dark Sky Park, the country's southernmost park, on the Yaeyama Islands.

Finally, if you're travelling to South Korea check out the Yeongyang Firefly Dark Sky Park on the east coast, in one of the country's least populated areas yet only a 4.5-hour drive from Seoul.